


Last Call

by calliecaddie



Series: A Crumbling Universe [4]
Category: Luke Cage (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:29:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23753887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calliecaddie/pseuds/calliecaddie
Summary: An exhausted Claire Temple seeks out a shitty bar in Manhattan, and has an unexpected but short-lived reunion with an old flame.
Series: A Crumbling Universe [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1705459
Kudos: 2





	Last Call

It didn’t take long for Claire Temple to find the bar Jessica Jones had mentioned to her. Yet she didn’t have the heart to tell her what its original owner was up to these days. It had recovered from an explosion and reopened about a year after the fact. She wasn’t sure if it looked the same as it did when he owned it, but it still felt homey to be in.

Claire would’ve visited during normal business hours, but a long shift at the hospital made her go far earlier than that. She thought she’d be less inclined to have a drink if it were daytime, but the jury was still out. When she entered, there were a few people; customers from the night before who had no issues with staying through waking hours. A man in a cap hunched over on his table snoring into the wood, two in a booth muttering something about angry wives. 

Then there was the bartender, serving an impossibly large, bald man in a gold-lined suit leaning against the bar. 

She clutched her bag tightly and strode up behind him. “Luke?” she asked sternly.

Luke Cage turned around to face Claire, recognizing her voice immediately even though he didn’t want to. “Claire…” he said nervously.

Without a thought, Claire went up to Luke and slapped him squarely across the face. His head hardly moved, and Claire shook her hand in pain. But she would’ve done it again. The bartender turned to his selection of drinks, pretending not to notice.

She sat down a few chairs away from Luke, trying to regain her composure. She didn’t know what she wanted to find when she got here, but seeing Luke there was the last thing she expected, especially when he tried so hard to avoid her. She certainly wasn’t expecting to run into him like this, but she tried to act prepared.

Luke made himself comfortable on the bar, struggling to make eye contact with Claire, who was trying her hardest not to look at him. “How’d you find this place?”

Claire shrugged. “I asked Jess. You guys were close once, so I figured she’d know. What brings you here, anyway?”

“Thought I’d… relax somewhere nostalgic. Even though I hardly recognize the place.” Luke chuckled awkwardly, trying to make light of their unsettling reunion. “Funny, I just saw Jess recently. You didn’t tell her about me?”

“Has she kicked your ass lately?”

“She’s probably the only person that could. But no, she hasn’t.”

Claire shook her head. “Then looks like you didn’t tell her either.”

Luke tilted his glass toward himself, staring at the drink inside as if it would give him some clue of what to say next. Claire simply stared straight ahead, trying to recall everything she’d wanted to tell him since she’d heard about his new line of work. She wasn’t scared or nervous, but she wasn’t expecting to have to tell him off so suddenly. She was just tired. From work, from worrying about Luke, from sleepless nights wondering what had happened to the supers she surrounded herself with.

“What the hell is going on with you, Luke?” Claire asked, breaking a stifling silence. “You are maybe the only superhero I know who stopped questioning how to use their powers, and you use them for _this_?”

Luke sighed. “Harlem is… so much more broken than I thought. It was broken long before I ever became bulletproof, and it’s only gotten more damaged since I became its hero. I was never gonna make it better just by being a vigilante.”

“So you became a crime lord?” Claire scoffed. “What, you thought that instead of protecting Harlem, you’d try to control it? That’s what every single person who ran Harlem’s Paradise tried to do, and now you’re no different than the gangsters who sat the throne you’re in now.”

“You told me that I should use my power to save Harlem,” Luke snapped, his anger leaking out. “I couldn't do that as one person barreling through the streets, but I’m fixing it from the inside. You should see it now!”

Claire turned to face Luke, perhaps the only person in the bar trying to be unafraid of his stature. “Trying to fix something from the inside changes you more than you try to change it.” 

“That’s not what’s happening,” Luke insisted. “I’m trying to make Harlem great again.”

“ _Very_ poor choice of words, Luke. Let me ask you something.”

Luke clasped his hands and settled down on the bar again. “What?” he said menacingly.

“Has crime gone _down_ in Harlem since you perched yourself up top? Have all the gangs and criminals in the area just… stopped now that Luke Cage is in charge?”

He rubbed his bald head and pushed out a frustrated breath. “They’re working for me now. And I’m not letting them--”

“So nothing’s changed,” Claire confirmed. “The only difference is that their boss calls himself a defender instead of a king.”

“I…” The invincible man felt vulnerable more times than he cared to admit. It often took the ones with the least power to show him how helpless he could be. He tried to stand his ground, still convincing himself as he did every day that he was doing good. “Mariah left Harlem’s Paradise to me. And I damn well couldn’t trust it to anyone else. As far as I’m concerned, I’m the only one who wants what’s best for Harlem. I’ve given it a lot of thought, more than you might think. Claire, I know I made the right choice.”

Claire felt a single tear streak from her eye. She sniffled for a moment as she wiped it away. She turned away from Luke again. She couldn’t bear to look at him for one more second. 

“I… I don’t even recognize you anymore, Luke. You were never in this to fight for ownership of Harlem. I can tell you still want to do good, but I just… don’t see how this achieves it. Not without… the darkest parts of the city completely warping you.” She pressed her hands over her eyes, trying to wall off her tears. She didn’t want to cry over him. Not again. “You should know better than anyone. Harlem doesn’t need a ruler. It needs its hero back.”

Silence fell over Claire once again. For a moment, she felt numb. As if the overwhelming feelings she’d just wrung from herself left her hollow and feeling absolutely nothing. If Luke had said anything, she wasn’t sure if she’d hear it. 

But he hadn’t.

“Christ, Luke, are you even listening to me?” Claire turned, brave enough to look him in the eyes again.

There was no one sitting across from her. Before she realized it, Luke Cage had left her behind. Not a word. No goodbyes. And certainly no sign that anything she said had gotten through to him.

The chuckle that came out of Claire was dry and lifeless. She wrapped her hands around her head, scolding herself for thinking that talking to him was a good idea. It would’ve been one thing if he didn’t listen to her, but she thought she’d be used to Luke brushing her off these days.

She leaned forward on the bar to get the bartender’s attention. “Did you see the guy here leave?”

“You mean Luke Cage?” he asked. “Not really, but at this hour, I only notice people if they order something.”

“Fantastic,” she chided. She looked up at the clock in the bar, which read a time much too early for the drink she had in mind. “Hey, how long until you close for the afternoon?”

“Long enough so that you can squat here for a bit and I won’t be pissed.”

“Glass of brandy on the rocks. Whatever’s cheap but good.”  
Wordlessly, the bartender grabbed the nearest bottle of brandy and poured it in a glass for her. As he set it down, he asked “So if you don’t mind me prying, how is it that you happen to know the Hero of Harlem?”

Claire swirled the brandy in her glass and brought it close to her lips. She bit down a stinging swig and said “...I don’t know him, actually. Not anymore.”

To Claire, the husk of Luke Cage’s old bar felt colder and emptier than it did when she first walked in. Luke Cage had left her in the dust. The snoring man had probably woken up and stumbled off. The two in the booth likely slithered away to complain about their marriages even more. There was only a bartender eager to return home until his next shift. 

And there was Claire Temple. A little more broken. A little less hopeful. And wondering if she could ever believe in heroes again.


End file.
